Let's look tonight in John chapter
four. John chapter four. I want us to consider tonight
worshiping God. I want to learn how to worship
God. I believe you believers would
say the same thing. We want to learn how to worship
God, don't we? I feel like I've been trying
for a long time. May the Lord teach us tonight. John chapter
4, verse number 1. When therefore the Lord knew
how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more
disciples than John, Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his
disciples, he left Judea and departed again into Galilee,
and he must needs go through Samaria. Then cometh he to a
city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near the parcel of ground
that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus,
therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the
well, and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of
Samaria to draw water, and Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. For his disciples were gone away
into the city to buy meat. Then saith the woman of Samaria
unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of
me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings
with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto
her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith
to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of him, and
he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him,
Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From
whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than
our father Jacob, which gave us this well, and drank thereof
himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and
said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall
never thirst. But the water that I shall give
him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting
life. The woman saith unto him, Sir,
give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.
Jesus saith unto her, Go and call thy husband, and come hither.
The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said
unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast
had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband,
and that saidst thou truly. The woman saith unto him, Sir,
I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this
mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where
men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman,
Believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain
nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship you know
not what. We know what we worship, for
salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now
is, when the true worshiper shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to
worship him. God is spirit, or God a spirit,
and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto him, I know
that Messiah's cometh, which is called Christ, when he is
come, he will tell us all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that
speak unto thee am. The Lord Jesus told this woman
in verse 22, he said, you worship you know not what. Now this statement
does not apply to the children of God, to believers. We know
what we worship. We know who we worship, don't
we? We worship the God of the Bible. We worship God the Father,
who in mercy and in grace and love chose a multitude of sinners
that he would have for his own, who he would have as his children.
who he elected to be part of his family. We worship God the
Father, and so he sent his son into this world, that he might
be the propitiation for our sins, that we should not perish but
have everlasting life. We worship God the Father. We
worship God the Son. That is the eternal son of God
who became a man and came into this world to live a life not
for himself, but a life for us. That is a life, a perfect life,
a life of always loving God with all of his heart and soul and
being in his mind. And we worship the Lord Jesus
Christ. He, the son of God, who went
to the cross and died upon the cross, not for his own sins or
for his own offenses, but that he may pay for the sins of all
who look to him that believe in him. And we worship God, the
Holy Spirit. He who had mercy and grace came
to us when we were dead in sins and gave us gave us life, gave
us spiritual life so that we could see the kingdom of God,
so that we could see these things. And he has come to live within
us, to guide us, and lead us through this life. We know who
we worship. So this statement doesn't apply
to us. You know, the Lord Jesus said
to her, you worship, you know not what. That doesn't apply
to the believer. But I must confess, after many
years of attempting to worship the God of the Bible, it could
be said about me, you worship, you know not how. What? Who? Yes. But how? This is something that I've been
thinking about for a few months now. And I don't know that today
versus a few months ago that, you know, when we come together,
we come to worship, don't we? I wanna worship. I wanna worship
in spirit and in truth. All of us have other things that
we could be doing. Right? Well, why do we come?
We come because we want to worship God because he's worthy to be
worshiped. Right? We've come to worship.
But I confess that many times I come and my mind is running
here and there and my desire is to worship, but I find that
I don't worship like I want to. But thankfully the Lord hasn't
left us in the dark. He taught us here how it is,
if we're gonna worship God, how it is that we are to worship.
You notice that, verse 23 and 24. He said, but the hour cometh,
and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God, a spirit, and they that
worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. I think hearing
says that we must worship God in spirit. Spirit is in opposition
to cardinal ordinances. The Jews were kept under the
law until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that law that
they were kept under, it had a lot of cardinal ordinances.
That is, that worship consisted in meats and drinks and divers
washings and cardinal ordinances. But thank God that was about
to come to an end. And so when the Lord Jesus says
that we must worship in spirit, it's an opposition then through
cardinal ordinances. In truth, I believe that speaks
of being opposed to worshiping typically. You see, under the
law of God that he gave through Moses, there were a lot of sacrifices
and offerings that were offered. Countless, every day, more and
more sacrifices. And why were those sacrifices
given? Not to take away sin. Someone
may say, well, those sacrifices were given to take away the sins
of the people of Israel. The scripture teaches that those
sacrifices never took away not even one sin because it's not
possible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin.
It's not animals who have offended God. It's man who sinned against
God. And so man must be the one who
pays the price for sin. So why did God require all of
those sacrifices? He required those sacrifices
because they were types and pictures of his son that he was going
to send into this world. And not one sacrifice or not
one offering could picture everything that the Lord Jesus would accomplish.
It took countless different ones. And still at the end of all of
that, all it gave was just a little bit of a shadow, just a little
bit of a picture of what the Lord Jesus would come into this
world and accomplish for us. But the time now had come when
we would no longer worship through types and pictures, but that
we would worship through the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the
way, the truth and the life, the one who, by that one sacrifice,
put away forever the sins of those who God gave him to come
into this world to save. So we worship God not through
things that we do, You know, by human nature, we want to do
something, don't we? It just comes natural to us.
But we don't worship God by things that we do. That's not how God
will be worshiped. And we don't worship him through
legal ordinances. We don't worship him through
typical offerings and sacrifices. but we worship him through the
Lord Jesus Christ. He who all of those types and
pictures were, they typified, they spoke of him. Aren't you
glad that you live after the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ?
I'm thankful. I'm thankful that I live now,
now that the Savior has come. Those folks in the Old Testament,
they saw just a glimpse, just a glimpse. And now we have the
full account of our Savior coming into this world and walking and
living for us and dying for us. And we don't have to see it in
shadows and in types and in pictures, but we have that word revealed
to us clearly in the Gospels. So our worship of God must be
spiritual, and it must be spiritually performed. Our worship has to
be spiritual and spiritually performed, not by legal ceremonies. You know, you see there's a mixture
in what's called the church today. There's a lot of legal ceremonies
still today. They're not the same legal ceremonies
that there were in the Law of Moses, but people have things,
right, that they must do. Our worship is to be spiritual.
It's from the heart. It's not in the things that we
do. It's from our hearts. And I think we have a really
good example of a man worshiping. Seems like this is the day where
we speak of David a lot. But of a man worshiping God in
spirit and in truth. When he said from his heart,
he said, bless the Lord, O my soul. That's a man worshiping
God. Bless the Lord. Oh, my soul and
all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the
Lord. Oh, my soul. And forget not all
his benefits. You see, David's not doing anything,
is he? It's from his heart, it's spiritual. Forgive not all his benefits,
who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases,
who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving
kindness and tender mercies, who satisfieth thy mouth with
good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles. That
is a picture of a man worshiping God, worshiping God in spirit
and in truth. Worship is not doing something.
It's not doing something, it's spiritual. It consists of love
of God, faith in God, trusting in his goodness, meditating upon
him. Worship is a work of the heart.
So when we come here to worship, that's the first thing that we
should keep in mind. It's not so much about physically doing
something, about coming here. No, we come here and we should
remind ourselves that worship is from the heart. We must worship
from our hearts. God seeks such that would worship
him in spirit and in truth. So let me try to just give a
few points tonight about worship. There's nothing original. Anything
I ever say, you know, there's not going to be anything original
in anything that I say. But I've been trying to read
a book. I've heard Brother Streeter mention
this book several times over the years, The Attributes of
God by Stephen Charnock. I told our pastor, my dad, that
I was reading that, and he said, boy, I wish you the best. I've
never been able to quite make it through that whole book. Stephen
Charnock, you could tell he spent a lot of time meditating. And
he has point after point, bullet after bullet. It just goes on
and on and on on each of the attributes. And every bit of
it is good. And so I tried to glean just
some of the things. And he was writing on this attribute
of God as spirit. And he used this verse that I'm
trying to use tonight for this message. And he just gave so
many good things about worshiping God. And so I want to just share
some of those with you tonight. He talked about there's some
prerequisites to being able to worship God. So there's some
things that have to be in place before we can worship God. First
of all, we must be born again. God has to do something for us
before we can worship him. He has to give us spiritual life
because otherwise, the Lord Jesus said, you must be born again.
Because without that new birth, we can't see the things of God.
We can't enter into the kingdom of God and we can't see the things
of God. So we must be born again. A person
worshiping that has not been born again, that cannot happen.
Not true worship. Secondly, we have to be helped. God the Holy Spirit has to help
us. I don't know that we see our
weakness anymore. I don't know that I see my weakness
anymore in life than when I try to worship, whether it be at
home or when we come together as a congregation, as a church.
Unless God the Holy Spirit helps us, our worship will be dead.
It will be empty. And when I have the opportunity
to preach, that's always my prayer that God would, in his mercy
and grace, be pleased to bless. He has to enable us to worship
or we cannot. And it must be done in sincerity.
Now, I almost hesitate to say that because all of you, I have
a feeling, go, well, that leaves me out. If it has to be done
in sincerity, then I'm done. I'll never be able to worship.
But I don't mean that as we talk about sincere, but not to be
seen of others. We're not to come here so that
others see us, hey, you know, they really did good. They went
to church today or tonight. No, it must be done. It must
be done, not to be seen of others, but because you and I, we want
to worship our great God. And fourthly, our emotions must
be engaged. You know, it's okay for our emotions
to be engaged in worship. In fact, they must be. We read
in Ephesians, singing and making melody to God in your hearts. Our hearts, our emotions are
to be engaged in worshiping God. So I don't want to make you nervous,
but I'm about to give you 11 points. but I'm gonna be brief on each
of these. All spiritual graces should be engaged in our worship.
Now this message, if it's not for anybody else, it's definitely
for me. Faith, confidence in God must
be engaged in our, if we're gonna worship God in spirit and in
truth, our faith must be engaged. As we talked about this morning,
he that comes to God must believe that he is, and he's the rewarder
of them that diligently seek him. Our faith, our belief, unless
we believe that God is a God of compassion, a God of mercy,
and a God of grace, we cannot worship. We cannot worship a
God that we only believe is a God who is holy and just and righteous. Why? Because if he was only holy,
just, and righteous, there would be no hope for us. We would not
be able, you say, oh yeah, no, we would not be able to worship
unless by faith we believe that he is also a God of mercy, of
grace, and of love. That's the second thing. Love
must be involved in our worship. If our hearts don't go out in
love to God, we can't worship. That's not worship in spirit
and in truth. Love of God for what he's done
for us. Love of God that he didn't just
leave us to ourselves. Aren't you thankful that the
Lord didn't pass you by? There's so many, so many around
us. They have no interest whatsoever in God. We're no better than
anyone else. It's only because God in mercy
has given us a desire to come and to worship him. Love for
what he's already done for us and love for what he's still
going to do for us. We are to love God for the things
that are still to come. We know he's our father and he
loves us and he's going to give us good things to come. Worship
requires that we have a sensibleness of our weakness. If we come thinking,
oh yeah, I have the ability to worship God, guess what? We're
not gonna worship in spirit and in truth. As we read in the scripture,
we are perfect weakness. Lighter than vanity, only with
God's help can we worship. Spiritual worship seeks communion
with God. I don't know, when you thought
about coming tonight, did you think that thought, I want to
go tonight and I want to have communion with God? I want to
walk with him and I want to talk with him. I want him to speak
with me, speak to my heart. I want him to speak to my heart
that I'm his and that he's mine, that he's my savior, that he
loves me, that he lived for me, that he died for me, to commune
with him. Spiritual worship is full of
thanksgiving to God. By him, therefore, let us offer
the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit
of our lips given thanks to his name. When we truly worship in
spirit and in truth, our hearts are full of thanksgiving for
what God has done for us. Sixthly, our worship should be
full of joy and cheerfulness. Lord, help me with this. Our worship should be full of
believers. We have every reason to be joyful
and to be cheerful tonight. Regardless of the circumstances
that we find ourselves in this world, God is on our side. How can we not be cheerful? God
is on our side. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him
freely give us all things? Shall God give his best and then
yet not give us those things that we need? No, absolutely
not. It's insanity to even think that
way. Even though our worship should
be full of joy, it also should be performed with reverence and
with godly fear. We should never forget when we
come to worship God that we are worshiping a holy and a righteous
God. And we're sinners. And as such,
we must worship with reverence and fear. Our worship should
be full of humility. The sacrifices of God are a broken
spirit and a broken and contrite heart, oh God, thou will not
despise. We must worship with humility.
Who are we? Who am I? Who am I that God would
take notice of me? Who are you that God would take
notice of you and allow you to worship him? Allow me to worship
him in spirit and in truth. Number nine, spiritual worship
desires the glory of God. We desire that God be glorified,
don't we? I'm so thankful that I have a
place where I can come. And I don't ever worry when our
pastor stands in the pulpit to preach or anybody else that he
feels comfortable to ask to preach. I don't ever worry whether or
not their purpose and their goal is going to be to glorify God. Only God is worthy to be glorified. To Him be all praise and glory
and honor. As we read in Revelation, Thou
art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for
Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are
and they were created. Number 10, and if you don't hear
anything else I say tonight, please hear this. Our worship must be offered through
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way God will
accept our worship, if it's offered through the Lord Jesus Christ.
You see, every blessing, spiritual blessing that we have from God,
we only have it on account of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Every gift that God's ever given us, whether it be our election,
our calling, our salvation, our forgiveness, our glorification,
everything that God has for us, is through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And everything that we try to offer back to God must go through
a pacifying mediator. You say, oh no, I can worship
God. I don't need the Lord Jesus Christ.
God is not going to accept it. God is not gonna accept you.
He's not gonna accept me unless we come to him through the Savior
which he has provided, the one mediator between God and man,
the man Christ Jesus. Number 11, worship requires that
we forsake all known sins. Now, this is where it gets tough. Worship requires that we forsake
all known sins. Our Lord John said that this
is what the Lord Jesus taught. He said, this then is the message
which we have heard from him. From who? From the Lord Jesus. And we declare it unto you that
God is light, that is, he's holy, and in him is no darkness at
all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and we walk in darkness,
we're lying and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light as
he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood
of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. Now, believers,
when you hear that, I'm confident that a burden of guilt very likely comes
upon you as you read those scriptures. It does upon me. But when John
says here, but if we walk in the light, he's not talking about
living a sinless life. That's not what he's talking
about. Because if that was true, the blood of Jesus Christ would
not need to cleanse us from all sin. We were born sinners, we
are sinners today, and we will be sinners until God in his mercy
and grace delivers us from this body of death. That's the only
time when we'll leave sin behind. But what this verse is talking
about is making a league. I don't know. All I know is what's
within my heart. I don't know what's in other
people's hearts. But I do believe that there is a sin that all
of us are most prone to. And I believe it's probably different
for most people. But there is a sin that attacks
us and we're most prone to than other things. It's easy to get
tired of fighting the flesh, is it not? It's easy to get tired
of fighting and just to give in. Well, you know, I'm still
gonna worship the Lord, but I'm just gonna, I'm gonna allow this
in my life. God won't accept our worship.
Our Lord Jesus, he talked about, you know, if you have some type
of quarrel with your brother, you go take care of that, and
then you come and worship. That doesn't mean we'll ever
be without sin, but I think, I think you know what I'm talking
about tonight. I know what I'm talking about.
May God give us the grace to forsake those things that get
in the way. We can still come and we still
try to worship, but if there's something that we've signed the
league with, a sin, we're not gonna enjoy the presence and
the fellowship of God as we would otherwise. Now let me just share
a couple other things with you. I hope you're asking the question
like I have been asking for months. Do I worship in spirit and in
truth? The Lord Jesus said that God
seeks such to worship. And he said that if we're gonna
worship, we must worship in spirit and in truth. Do I worship in
spirit and in truth? I believe one of the things that
makes that question makes us ask that question of
ourselves, is our struggles when we try to worship. Do you struggle
to try to worship? I would, I often, most of the
time, I'm sitting where you're sitting. I have a hard enough
time staying focused when I'm up here trying to speak. You
say, well, yeah, you're ADD. Yeah, probably so. But I struggle
to stay focused up here, but when I'm sitting out in the pew
and I'm trying to worship, I find my mind, it runs here and it
runs there, and I'm thinking about what needs to happen tomorrow,
and what needs to happen Wednesday, and all the stuff I have to get
done, and when I get home, what I need to do tonight, and for
you younger people, you know, tests that you have this week.
Our mind, it just, it wonders, doesn't it, as we try to worship.
So we question, do we worship in spirit and in truth? But I
hope that this will be an encouragement to us. I believe that that it's
actually natural. It's natural for us as sinners
for our minds to wonder. I will quote a quote verbatim
from Stephen Charnock. He said, listen to this, I thought
this was so good. He said, we bear in our bosoms
a nest of turbulent thoughts which like busy gnats will be
buzzing about our minds as we attempt to worship. Is that not
true? It's like our mind is full of
these thoughts. They're like gnats. You ever
been out in Mexico, the Chiquistas? I don't know if y'all have ever
experienced Chiquistas. They're like the worst kind of
gnats known to mankind. When you get out there, they're
just all over. You can't get away from them. You know, at
least with a horsefly, if you put your hand up, maybe they'll
stay away from your ears. But not with these gnats. Well, that's what our minds are
like when we try to worship. Isn't that true? They wonder. They go everywhere. I want to
encourage you by, not by excusing that, but by telling you that
that's natural. That's the state that we're in
today. As long as there is corruption in us, our natural corruption
is going to fight against us trying to worship God. To believe
anything else is foolish. And as long as there's a devil
and we live in his precinct, he would like nothing better
than to distract us from worshiping God. And when that happens, all
you can do is try to bring yourself back. Try to bring your mind
back. It's going to go away, and try
to bring it back. We have to be aware when we're trying to
hear God's gospel preached, when we're trying to sing praises
to his name, that these gnats, these thoughts are going to try
to draw us away. And all we can do is try to bring
ourselves back into the worship. But don't despair tonight. I believe these struggles, there's
some good in them. If there wasn't, I don't believe
the Lord God would have left us to struggle as we do in trying
to worship. So let me just give you these
things and I'll be done. First of all, our struggles in
worship, I believe they help us avoid spiritual pride. How
in the world could we be spiritually pride? have spiritual pride,
be spiritually proud, when we can't go five minutes in a worship
service without our minds going somewhere else. It's impossible,
isn't it? And I think our struggles in
worship, they just remind us just how weak we are. Secondly,
I believe that our struggles in worship remind us of the baseness
of our natures. You say, what do you mean by
that? Just how opposed our natures are to God. That which is born
of the flesh is flesh, and it will always be flesh till we
leave this world. Our natures, they're opposed
to God, and it doesn't show up anymore than when we try to worship
God. And our minds are everywhere
else. I believe this teaches us that
unless God would have chosen us, we definitely would have
never chosen him. Isn't that true? Unless God would
have chosen us, we would have never chosen him. Why? Because
our natures are totally opposed. By nature we're opposed to God.
I think thirdly, it reminds us of God's amazing grace. Isn't
it wonderful that God doesn't just destroy us? His amazing
grace that though we fail and fumble and stumble, when we try
to worship, he continues to provide a message through his pastor
for us to come and try once again to worship God. And lastly, I
think it reminds us and makes us thankful that we have a great
high priest. The Lord Jesus Christ, he who
is, you say, well, how great a high priest is he? He is so
great. He's such a great high priest
that he can make even my worship and your worship acceptable to
God through his Mary. What a gracious, gracious God
we serve. I hope that that can be a blessing
to you as it's been to me. I want to learn how to worship.
And I know I'm going to fail, and I'm going to fall, and I'm
going to stumble, and yet I want to get up and try again to worship
our God, for he's worthy of worship, even though I'm not able to worship
as I should. May the Lord bless this word.
David, you want to dismiss this in a song?